When you announce one thing in marketing campaign and deliver another, you risk backlash regardless whether that thing is good or not. This, in essence, happened to Lawrence Kasdan with his 1999 film Mumford.
Protagonist, played by Loren Dean, is Dr. Mumford, young man who comes to eponymous town in Oregon in order to practice psychotherapy. Four months later he has large and diverse set of patients that include shoplifting housewife Althea Brockett (played by Mary McDonnell), suicidal teenager Nessa Watkins (played by Zooey Deschanel) and Henry Follett (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince), pharmacist with bizarre sexual fetishes. Secret of his success is unusual ability to recognise patient’s problems and offer useful advice how to solve them. One of patients is young tycoon Skip Skipperton (played by Jason Lee) who, despite huge wealth, couldn’t overcome his pathological shyness. Mumford agrees to treat him discreetly, under the guise of joint fishing trips. Skip is soon surprised to find Mumford openly discussing other patients and their personal details and notices that is something wrong with the psychotherapist. Mumford confirms those suspicions and admits that he is not psychotherapist at all and that he forged his credentials in order to escape from shady past. Things get further complicated for Mumford when he falls in love with one of the patients – Sofie Crisp (played by Hope Davis), woman suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. In the meantime, two genuine psychotherapists in town – Dr. Ernest Delbanco (played by David Paymer) and Dr. Phyllis Sheeler (played by Jane Adams) – begin to suspect that their competitor is not what he claims to be and express those doubts to Lionel Dillard (played by Martin Short), attorney who doesn’t like Mumford.
Lawrence Kasdan is very good director who made some notable films in 1980s and had even more impressive career as screenwriter with classics like The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Despite such great reputation, Mumford is greeted very badly by critics that had previously liked his work. The reason might be found in the film being advertised as comedy but actually lacking proper doses of humour and functioning as straight drama. Further enmity was earned with Kasdan’s apparently disdainful views of psychiatry and its professionals, who are in Mumford shown as inferior to amateurs equipped with few kind words and common sense. That apparently didn’t sit well with intellectuals and Hollywood establishment that like to think that large amounts of money spent on gurus or fancy psychotherapists serve some purpose.
Strictly technically speaking, Mumford is very good film. While some other director probably wouldn’t handle lack of dramatic twists with much success, Kasdan comfortably relies on good cast that plays diverse set of unusual characters. Young and relatively unknown Loren Dean is very good in the role of enigmatic protagonist, while Jason Lee gives interesting portrayal of character that might have been inspired by Bill Gates. From time to time, in order prevent monotony, Kasdan indulges in stylistic experiments, like in the flashback scenes or those depicting Mumford’s patients’ fantasies. Some of those experiments don’t quite work, like those using references to Unsolved Mysteries television show. But, at the end of the day, Mumford is interesting, thought-provoking yet entertaining little film that are lately very difficult to find in Hollywood.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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